The Camden Crawl

This is about recapturing Iceland, for me at least. There are
certain superficial similarities, the format is identical, Camden,
about the size of downtown Rekyavik, has about half a dozen different
venues populated by obscure rock groups and open to bearers of a
wristband who are free to come and go as they please; the situation is
similar, I am going with two people I know very well, Stan and Jack,
and two I have only met a couple of times, Joe and Rick; the sense of
occasion is almost there too, where Iceland was two desperately full
days in a strange country, Camden is one Thursday night, but we have,
in anticipation of monumental hangovers, taken Friday off work, and
this is enough to make it seem special.

We arrive at the wrong end of Camden about seven thirty with no idea
who is on where or when, and walk down to the Bulls Head where tickets
are exchanged for wristband, program, and sampler CD with frightening
efficiency. Kind of like being flushed but dryer. We meet Joe outside
and give him his ticket and send him through with the forewarning that
his feet won't touch the ground. He emerges from the back end of the
pub seconds later with the same befuddled expression on his face we
have only just shaken from ours.

A study of the program reveals we have already missed Hot Chip, who I
remember from Iceland, but that Hard-Fi are on in ten minutes in Lock
17. Hard-Fi have had a song played so relentlessly on Radio 6 the past
few months that both Jack and I have fallen in love with it, they are
also from Staines and we feel the need to show some solidarity.

We skulk at the back near the bar like old men, we are near the top of
the age range here, in fact I might even be it. Hard-Fi play some very
enthusiastic but fairly rubbish rock for two songs and Joe, who is not
from Staines, is looking shifty around the bottom of his pint like he
might want to leave and I quickly get in another round to make sure he
doesn't. Then the band play the single featuring the front man on
melodica and the whole thing comes alive. Jack says he wished they had
left off the end of the song, a repeated call of 'There's a hole in my
pocket', because he is troubled by the urge to add 'Dear Liza' but I
argue that this irksome familiarity is what makes the song. After that
the band play three more songs and don't put a foot wrong, even
reintroducing the melodica at one point.

We plot our next move, there is only time for two more bands at most
venues and it seems likely that if we want to catch a popular headline
act we will need to be in the venue for the act before. There are a few
good options, Goldy Lookin' Chain are on at KoKo, Graham Coxon is on
somewhere or other, Special Mystery Guests are on at the Electric
Ballroom, Joe wants to see the Waterboys at Lock 17 and also says that
the band before, Kaito, are pretty good, so we order another round of
drinks and wait where we are.

Kaito line up in starched jackets, do not make eye contact with the
audience, and make a sound something like an unholy alliance of Loop
and Bis, all grinding guitar riffs and high pitched vocals like a seal
barking into the microphone. This is what happens when you let art
students out at night. Stan and Joe claim to actually like it but Jack
and I decide to take our precious time elsewhere and leave the moment
we have finished our drinks.

We head directly for Koko in order to see the Magic Numbers, a name
Jack has a dim recollection of so might be good. On the way we meet
Rick who, only running two hours late, is doing pretty well according
to Jack. Rick is all for the Magic Numbers but refuses to watch Goldy
Lookin' Chain, he wants to see the Waterboys.

Koko, which was once the Camden Palace, and a friend of mine memorably
described as 'very nice as long as you don't think about what would
happen if there was a fire', is a lushly ornate theatre lurking at the
bottom of a long thin corridor, it is hot and busy and puts me in mind
of a spider's den. We head upstairs but the bar there is reserved for
VIPs which we are apparently not, so we stand on the balcony and send
the occasionally mission downstairs for beer.

The magic numbers are extremely good, very tuneful, soulful, rock and
roll, not unlike a happier Handsome Family cutting loose. They even
whip out a melodica at one point and we speculate that a theme for the
evening is developing but that is the last one any of us see. The crowd
below bounces about enthusiastically and we tap the occasional finger
ourselves.

After the set ends the place empties ready for Goldy Lookin' Chain. The
indie kids populating Camden don't care for comedy Welsh hip-hop it
seems, go figure. Soon even Jack and Rick leave, saying they will find
out who the mystery guests are and then see the Waterboys anyway. We
arrange to meet outside the tube station at eleven.

Goldy Lookin' Chain, media students all I am certain, come on in front
of a banner that reads 'Safe As Fuck' which amuses the people standing
next to me more than I can explain, and immediately start bantering
with the audience and rapping in a Welsh lilt that is strangely
seductive. The lyrics are funny, and so is the fact that they all dance
really really badly, and there are a lot of them, and they move around
a lot, which is kind of dazzling, but they get old quick. The
realisation that I have been left entirely to my own devices dawns on
me and I head straight for the Kerrang stage at Bar Oh.

Bar Oh was obviously not designed as a music venue because the entrance
feeds you straight in front of the stage, and by stage, I mean corner.
Jammed tightly into this particular corner, raised maybe two feet above
the crowd, are Hell Is For Heroes, and they are making as much noise as
they can, and it is good. I choose not to bother pushing through to the
bar, and stop and watch. The singer leans out into the crowd, shouting
into his microphone, the bassist is wedged tight against a stack of
amps and is holding his instrument almost vertically with the fretboard
up against his cheek, the guitarist and the drummer I cannot see, but
it is the crowd that really commands my interest. They bounce like
demented things, flaying hair and pushing and shoving. One in
particular suddenly stops and stands with both hands pointed skywards,
head nodding, worshiping at the temple of Rock. And the rapture is
real, I can feel it rising up from the trembling floorboards beneath my
feet, but this guy has it all the way to his extended fingertips. He is
gawky, has glasses, a bad t-shirt, hair that is not nearly long enough,
and a look like his limbs don't fit him properly, but the Rock has
released him and now he is one with the crowd, one with the band, one
with the Rock. I know the feeling exactly, he is me ten years
ago.

Before they finish the singer jumps into the crowd and is carried out
away from the stage and tries to hang from a lamp shade. The guitarist
concludes the last song by leaning his guitar against an amp emitting a
squall of pulsating feedback and the band walk away through the crowd
pressing flesh as they go. I get the odd voyeuristic sensation that I
am intruding on two lovers, the band love their audience, and the
audience love the band. It is not until a roadie climbs onto the stage
and switches off the amp, ending the feedback scream, that people turn
away and start talking. As I walk back to the station to meet my
friends I realise I am grinning from ringing ear to ringing ear, this
is what heavy metal is for.

Waiting outside the station I invent a new game that involves walking
back and forth past the drug dealers seeing how long it takes them to
give up on me, eventually I win and walk from one entrance to the other
without a single offer of 'hash, blow'. I buy a hotdog which is
possibly more potent than anything else available and walk back to
every single offer reiterated.

The others eventually return, Stan dashes straight on to the train
hoping to get back to Staines tonight, Joe stops for a hotdog and then
scurries off claiming he has to work tomorrow. Rick says he will stay
out with Jack and I, and bunk off work. Frantically I ask him who he
works for that lets him get away with this, it's the civil
service.

We want to see Hot Chip who have a second show on at one in the morning
but there are only live djs on anywhere before that, so we repair to a
coffee shop in the sure knowledge that a dose of caffeine will be
necessary if we are going to stay awake. We talk mainly of Iceland, it
is on my mind because of the similarities in the festival format and
Jack and Rick once spent a wallet busting month camping there and are
full of good stories.

In fact I am more struck by the differences than the similarities,
there was an atmosphere in Iceland, a sense of shared experience with
everyone else that raised it above merely a collection of good bands.
This is just like any gig in Camden, there are lots of people here but
we are all keeping to ourselves.

We enter The Underground shortly before Hot Chip are due to start and
switch from beer to Run and Coke in order to keep the caffeine intake
high. The place is dank and crowded and I have a dim recollection of
being extremely drunk there once before but cannot remember when. We
head for the dance floor and stand above it watching, waiting for the
band to come on. Girls trussed up and held together by cotton, denim,
and elastic move to whatever extent their clothes allow, while boys
opposite them move to whatever extent their dignity will allow. I am
struck by how little dancing is actually happening on the dance floor,
there is fair amount of drunken swaying from foot to foot, but little
abandon to the music, the rapture is absent, there is nothing here but
an excuse to stay up late and drink, there is no joy in it, there
doesn't even appear to be any of the pairing off and mating ritual
which some dance floors are full of.

Jack and Rick are struck by the absence of a band, we give them half an
hour to be sure and then leave, on the way out we spot a small printed
notice announcing that Hot Chip have been cancelled due to
illness.

We head over to The Electric Ballroom to see a band called The Two Lone
Swordsmen who none of us know from a hole in the ground but the
oxymoron amuses us. On the stage is a shambolic collection of leather
trousered rockers who later turn out to be Whitey running late, but we
assumed they were the Lone Swordsmen despite the fact there were more
than two of them. They are playing a sort of rock jam instrumental
thing held together by a shit hot rhythm section and it is good. Jack
buys a round and we lurk near the back, close to the bar. There is a
bundle of clothes piled on the floor that all of us mistake,
momentarily, for a body. Standing near it proves to be a dumb idea
because passing drunks trip over it and fly dangerously in any
direction. Soon it occupies its own space surrounded by a circle of
people at a safe distance.

When the instrumental ends a singer comes on to join the band and the
whole thing falls apart, he is okay and I am not sure if they are
somehow incapable of playing songs or that they just do not have the
songs to play, but pretty soon we look at each other and decide to call
it a night.

We take an interminably long bus ride back to Rick's flat where we eat
toast and play Nintendo for a bit before Jack and I go to sleep on the
sofa and floor respectively. In the morning flatmates I have not met
step politely over me on their way out. This at least, is exactly like
being ten years younger, I pull my sleeping bag over my head and smile
to myself, I have the day off work.